Hugo Dewar

1908-1980

Hugo Dewar was born in 1908 in Leyton. Joining the Independent Labour Party in 1928, he subsequently co-founded, with F.A. Ridley, the Marxist League. In 1931, he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain, to support their Balham group then battling against Stalinist policies, but was expelled in the following year. He took part in the founding of the Communist League, the first Trotskyist group in Britain, and continued to be active in Left Opposition groups until he was drafted into the army in 1943. On his discharge, he became a tutor in adult education, also writing many books and articles exposing Stalinism. He held firmly to his faith in revolutionary socialism until his death in June 1980.

He published several pamphlets and three books: Assassins at Large (Wingate, 1951) – a full account of the executions outside Russia ordered by the GPU; and The Modern Inquisition (Wingate, 1953) – a history and an analysis of the ‘confession trials’ in the USSR and the People’s Democracies, and Communist politics in Britain: The CPGB from its origins to the Second World War.